


we'll tell our stories on these walls

by withkissesfour



Category: The Young and the Restless
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Roommates in Love, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 17:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13618494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withkissesfour/pseuds/withkissesfour
Summary: She’s privy now to a hidden sort of beauty, that she can only see from this distance, that she can only see now, with Tessa living down the corridor, with Tessa brushing her teeth in her house, taking off her make-up in her bathroom. It feels terribly domestic, and she feels horribly lucky, luckier still when Tessa reaches forward, cups her chin in her palm.Mariah and Tessa, under the same roof, one way or another.





	we'll tell our stories on these walls

**Author's Note:**

> A long overdue fill for the tumblr prompt by j2thepowerof3: "How about something from when they lived in the same house, but better. A tense middle of the night kitchen meet up or kiss or something, they squandered so many opportunities when they were roommates" thank you!!!!
> 
> A little bit sexy but nothing overly explicit :)) 
> 
> Title from North, by Sleeping at Last.

i.

 

She finds Tessa’s dress on her bedroom floor. She finds her shoes kicked under the desk, finds her pantyhose flung over the bedside table. There are makeup smears on discarded tissues, and empty wine glasses pressing rings of cheap shiraz into the old wood of her dresser. There is an ache in her head, that beats a steady thrum against her temple, and she wants to crawl back under the covers, stay there forever.

‘Up and at ‘em, soldier.’

Mariah rubs at the sleep in her eyes, props herself up on her elbows. She can make out the long, curved, familiar frame of Tessa’s body – narrow shoulders, bare legs, leaning her hip against the doorframe – all cheer, all caffeine. She can make out the steam, rising steadily from the mugs in each hand, thrust towards her. She can make out the odd collection of odd socks, borrowed pyjamas, bed hair, in the new morning sun that splatters the room. If she squints, she can see the crooked edges of her crooked smile, open and affectionate and just for her.

She’s unfairly awake, unfairly gorgeous, padding towards the bed with a little caffeinated bounce in her barefoot step as Mariah straightens herself, tucks the pillow behind her back.

‘Marry me,’ Mariah says, when Tessa hands her the mug. Her voice is bed soft and careless, and she cradles the coffee very close to her face, blowing short puffs of breath, to cool it down. The ends of every synapse, the length of every nerve jolts into life, when the smell wafts towards her, when Tessa lets out a tinkling laugh.

She throws her head back, throws her chest forward, her lungs filled up with joy.  shoulders shake and the column of her swan-like neck trembles, stretches, bobs. Red fabric, the small choker that still ensnares her, is a shock of colour against her pale skin, an inconspicuous reminder of the night before – the whole mess with Devon, the whole mess with Hilary, the whole mess, the whole goddamn mess, and the way she looked in that choker and gown (crumpled now on her bedroom floor).

‘At least take me on a date first,’ she beams at Mariah, and the mattress dips below her weight as she shuffles carefully onto the bed covers. ‘How’re you feeling?’

Tessa sits so that their crossed legs face each other, so that they face each other, so that their knees would be touching were it not for the doona. Her smile is tender; and her cheeks are bright but her eyes are narrow. She sits so she can sit close, peer at her a little, inspect her a little.

Mariah’s face is thrust wholeheartedly in the oversized mug, full to the brim, just the way she likes (cream, no sugar). Mariah knows exactly what she’s doing, avoids her eye steadily, only surfaces to blindly grip at Tessa’s knee for a moment, mid gulp and sincere.

Tessa waits. She waits, with Mariah’s hand on her knee and head in her coffee mug, until there’s nothing left to drink and she’s breathless. She waits, and bores a hole in her – in her mug, in her manufactured disposition, with a flat stare.  She waits, until Mariah can’t bear it any longer, lowers the mug and raises her chin to meet Tessa’s gaze.

‘I’m fine.’

Tessa lets her head fall to the side, lets a small sigh escape her lips. Her expression is all disbelief, brows raised, mouth quirked, and she can see _right_ through her. She crashes through her bluff and bluster, sails past her pretences – sits right at the threshold of her heart and takes account of every fault, every nook, every (quiet, tender, messy, shitty, angry, lovely) corner of her.

‘You’re not fooling anyone, you know? You spent half the night crying on my shoulder.’

Tessa moves to grasp Mariah’s fingers but they are snatched away, hover between their bodies, indecisive, irresolute. Mariah can feel her stomach knot, can feel her unsteady heartbeat clattering against her rib cage. She knows this feeling of old. She knows this terror, humiliation, anger – the ironic surge of _feeling –_ when emotions are felt, when emotions are seen – and fights the urge to run, run, _run away._

She tugs at her shirt, instead, plays with the fraying seams, picks at the old splodges of old paint that decorate the sleeve. She squares her shoulders and bites at her lip and moves her finger around and around and around the rim of the mug that sits in her lap. She tucks and untucks and tucks her hair behind her ear, and fumbles, and backtracks, and fidgets. She watches Tessa, through her lashes.

‘Mariah it’s not – I – I just wanna look after you,’ her voice crackles, and her shoulders rise and fall into a despondent shrug and she shifts, like she might leave, like she might have scared her away. Mariah’s hand flies out, purposeful, catches Tessa’s ankle – the movement jolting the coffee, which sloshes, which spills a little on the white linen of the bedspread.

‘Wait,’ she says, and Tessa stills, holds her gaze.

Mariah searches her face – her eyes swimming with concern, her lips tender, her brow earnest, her jaw set, her _lips_ (her lips, her lips, _her lips_ ) – and find she is full to the brim with her; with Tessa Porter. She finds she wants every part of her, in every part of her life, finds herself wondering how she ever did without her. She sits for a moment in the sensation - uncomplicated, unravelled – of loving her; thinks she could set up house in the feeling.

She moves her hand up to Tessa’s neck, where the choker sits, and hooks a finger beneath it; gives it a gentle, affectionate tug, up and down. She shifts her hand, then, to her hair – a halo of mess around her kind face – and the strands that have come untucked from their haphazard look. Mariah tucks them, quietly, quickly, behind her ear, lets her hand linger near her cheek for a moment – holding her gaze all the while. She watches Tessa’s expression grow bright, her kind mouth stretch into a smile, and she mimics it with her own, leans forward with her own warm gaze – earnest, sincere, true.

‘I’m _fine._ ’

 

ii.

 

 

She wants to kiss her.

She has toothpaste lips and bright eyes, a late-night loveliness about her that makes Mariah’s stomach swoop, when she grins at her in the bathroom mirror, before she leans down to the sink.

She’s been dutifully avoiding it for weeks, the inevitable, her _feelings_. She’s been dodging, sidestepping, an expert in repression, an expert in misdiagnosis -  of symptoms she knows by heart. She’s liked people, she’s dated. She knows the first aches of a crush, fumbled sentences and nerves set alight, and you always want to be with them, and you always want to see them, and you feel like you can’t catch your breath _– catch your breath_ – when they walk into a room, when they sing, when they brush their teeth.  

She knows, and she doesn’t know, all at once now, with Tessa. It feels different with her. It feels more. It feels big, and terrifying, and fucking wonderful. It feels like something that might knock the breath out of her, like something that might set her spinning, like something that might break her heart – so she couldn’t (wouldn’t) (shouldn’t) try to unravel it, the knot of things she feels where Tessa is concerned.

But she turns towards her now, midway through a sentence that Mariah hasn’t followed. She pauses, grins - steady, affectionate, gorgeous, toothpaste drying at the right-hand corner of her mouth - and it knocks her sideways, hits her like a train.

She wonders what it would be like, if she took a step, half a step, forward. Her chest would be against her chest, her knees would knock against her knees, her mouth would be against her mouth. She wonders what it would be like, to kiss the right-hand corner of lips, and the left-hand corner for good measure, and the centre for good measure (the soft, low peaks of her cupid’s bow) (for good measure). She wonders if she would taste like toothpaste.

She wants to kiss her. She’s wanted to kiss her for weeks.

‘You alright, sleepy?’

Mariah’s gaze fumbles from her lips, when she realises she’s been staring. She hums a response, two octaves too high for casual ( _mmhm!_ ) and her gaze slips down her body, her long neck, her breasts, the toothbrush in her hand. Her gaze lands on their feet, on the tiles, instead. She wants the bathroom floor to fall beneath her, wants her legs to give way to nothing, wants the earth to open up and swallow her whole, so she is folded up in dirt, so she disappears –as her cheeks turn bright red, and she hears Tessa chuckle a little.

‘Hold still.’

Mariah watches, hair curtaining her face, as Tessa shuffles a foot forward, nudges her big toe with her big toe. She can feel her hand curve around the curve of her elbow, can hear her happy exhale, and she dares a look upwards.

There is a collection of freckles across her face. There is a constellation of them – stretching between her cheeks, collecting on her nose – and some of them disappear in the crinkles made there when she smiles, without teasing, without malice. They sit amongst unguarded fondness, unfettered loveliness, a particular sort of warmth that comes in the hours before bed; and feel special to her. Like she’s privy now to a hidden sort of beauty, that she can only see from this distance, that she can only see now, with Tessa living down the corridor, with Tessa brushing her teeth in her house, taking off her make-up in her bathroom. It feels terribly domestic, and she feels horribly lucky, luckier still when Tessa reaches forward, cups her chin in her palm.

‘Hold _still_ ,’ Tessa repeats, one hand still steadying her at her elbow, the other beneath the line of her jaw, fingers splayed. Her gaze fixes on her mouth, her thumb gravitating towards it, and Mariah feels like she might fall apart beneath her hands. She wants to kiss her, wants so badly to kiss her, dares to think Tessa might want to kiss her too. But Tessa’s thumb bypasses her lips, lands on her chin, and she rubs at it for a moment, before leaning back, appraising her work.  ‘You got a bit of toothpaste.’

Mariah’s heart crawls into her throat.

‘There,’ Tessa sighs, taps affectionately at her chin once more (for good measure), before pulling away. ‘Ravishing.’

She can’t keep doing this, she thinks. She can’t live with the desperation, the thrill of brushing teeth together, day in-day out, with their boyfriends in the wings and her whole body full of wanting, full of wanting her. She stills, stays - even as Tessa bounces from the room - tries to steady herself, tries to get her shit together, tries to snap out of it.

She won’t think about her, she thinks. Not about kissing her, not about - not about other things, with her. She won’t think about her at the breakfast table, coffee staining Tessa’s upper lip, feet knocking against hers under the table. Nor at the bar, at the Underground, and how Tessa’s hips sway, and her hands stretch out to her, and she urges her to dance - tongue through her teeth and her fingers tugging at the fabric of Mariah’s waist.

She won’t think about it when Tessa sings, in the studio, in the shower, on her way to work, on her way to bed. She won’t think about her when she’s not around, when Mariah is by herself, with the house asleep and her door closed and the covers pulled up to her neck, her fingers wandering the length of her own body, wandering towards the apex of her thighs; won’t bring herself off in a quick, and guilty, and ecstatic fumble.

She can’t. She shouldn’t. That’s all there is to it. She won’t think about her.

(She thinks about her.)

  

iii.

 

 

There is a whole different kind of awkward, previously unchartered territories of uncomfortable, that she hadn’t been acquainted with before right now - in the wash of the fridge light, somewhere after one am.

She thought she’d peaked, in San Francisco. She really thought she’d made it, thought she’d achieved new ambitious heights of utter, cringing embarrassment - a dumpster fire of excuses, apologies, lies; explaining away kissing her best friend, on the mouth, with her _mouth._

But she stumbles blindly into the kitchen, onto the cool floor with her bedwarm feet; squints, blinks, forces her eyes to adjust to the unexpected luminescence of the open fridge, and the tall, familiar figure peering into it, with messy hair and old shorts and no shirt.

Mariah thinks about slinking around the corner, before Tessa notices. She contemplates tiptoe-ing from the kitchen, from the house, from the city, from the country - changing her name, starting a new life, buying a cabin in the depths of Canada; where she never has to deal with this moment, with the rising colour of her cheeks or the unwanted want pooling in the pit of her stomach, with the girl she kissed in her goddamn bra - umm-ing and aah-ing over leftover cake.

She doesn’t get the chance, because the wood creaks beneath her foot and Tessa spins around; a hand full of a plate full of baked goods.

‘I - oh - hey!’

There’s relief visible on her face, in her posture, for a moment when she realises who it is, and Mariah thinks maybe this isn’t the first time she’s seen her shirtless - isn’t the first time she’s seen her with her shorts hanging from her hips, the edge of underwear peeking above them, and the delicate black or red or blue or green lace of her bra; which sits neatly on her delicate chest, scoops low on her pale skin. In fact, she thinks maybe this is a common occurence, a regular midnight snack outfit - that she’s seen her traipse from the kitchen, or past her room, or _into_ her room before in this state of undress, and it hadn’t registered; hadn’t meant anything in their platonic intimacy, their pre-kiss ease. _Shouldn’t wear your bra to bed,_ she might have pronounced, but her heart wouldn’t leap, her head wouldn’t spin, if she reached behind her as if to undo it, if she teased her, if she laughed ( _are you coming on to me, Copeland_?)

But everything means something between the two of them now, and Tessa’s cake-free hand flies up, unbidden, to cover her chest, like she can make out Mariah’s studied aversion of the area, training her gaze somewhere far left of her shoulder. She breathes out a forced, uncomfortable chuckle, and it makes Mariah’s heart sink.

She ruined so much, she thinks, in one fell swoop, one lapse of judgement, one heady, adolescent mistake, one kiss. She made things complicated, where they had once been effortless - the fluent movements of two friends in love with each other. She thinks maybe, maybe, she had made things about _sex_ , about their bodies, with each other’s bodies - had willed the discomfort into existence, between them, because she wants it, because she thinks about it, about her, about them - fucking, making love, waking up soft and decaffeinated and tangled up in each other. She wouldn’t deny it, if she asked, whether she thought about her, and her, like that, with each other. But she’ll never ask, and she’d never ask her to ask, for fear of breaking this fragile truce between them, the unsteady agreement that it meant nothing, it meant less than nothing, it meant so little it doesn’t need talking about, ever (lie, lie, lie) - the ties that bind their friendship.

But she’s ruined the slow road they’d been travelling, towards it, derailed it for the sake of her mouth, and without meaning to, without wanting to, had made her feel like a complicating factor, instead of adored, instead of a girl that another girl had a crush on.

Silence threatens to swallow the room, but Mariah can’t bring herself to break it, to form a sentence and birth it, can’t think of one sensible thing to say. She raises an awkward hand in an awkward wave, opens and closes and opens her mouth; like words will tumble out, like syllables might put themselves together and salvage some of her remaining dignity, like she might say something witty, something smooth, something _anything._

‘Ah - couldn’t sleep?’ Tessa offers, finally, kindly.

‘Yeah, no, nope. So hot, right?’ Mariah blusters, a miserable display at self-confidence, gestures towards the dark living room, towards, vaguely, the direction of their bedrooms. ‘Thought I’d - thought I’d Netflix and cool down.’

She tries to grasp at the words as they come out, tries to pluck them from the air and squeeze them back into her mouth. She rubs at her forehead, squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, like Tessa might disappear, like she’ll disappear, like she’ll wake up now, please, never having hung that sentence out to dry.

But it earns a laugh from Tessa, blithe, genuine, as she slams the fridge door shut with her hip, plunges them into midnight darkness. It earns a short burst of giggles, loud and large and unadulterated as she swans towards the door, like she might actually think she’s funny, like she might be endeared by her idiotic idiosyncrasies, like she might like _her,_ regardless of terrible punchlines at one forty-four in the morning, and maybe something is salvageable here, maybe something can come of them. Mariah’s heart feels big enough, light enough, to fill the kitchen, all the dark spaces left - all the nooks and crannies of the house.

‘Tess,’ she swallows, feels Tessa pause beside her, bare arm brushing against her bare arm. She strains to adjust to the lack of light, works to steel herself against the nearness of her, fights the spinning in her head, the tremble of her voice - looks sideways. Tessa looks back at her. ‘I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, ‘coz of me.’

‘Hm?’ Tessa hums her confusion, and Mariah can see the furrow of her brow in the very pale light of the moon, peering in through the window. Mariah’s breaking rules here, she knows. Breaking the rules they set, breaking locks to vaults they said they wouldn’t open; and she’s not sure how to go about it. Mariah exhales shakily.

‘I’d hate for my - my fuck up last week to make you feel awkward,’ she mumbles. ‘This is your home too. You should run around naked if you want to.’

She adds the last part as deflection, diversion, from her introduction of the topic they’ve been avoiding for days, and Tessa can tell. Mariah feels her free hand move to grip her arm, feels her lean closer, her chin just shy of resting on her shoulder.

‘Who said it was a fuck up?’ Tessa asks, without waiting for an answer, and her face is soft, sincere, and her tone is casual, but heavy, weighed with meaning - walking the line between matter-of-fact and profound, assertive and seductive. Mariah can’t take her eyes off of her dark eyes, can’t catch a breath for fear of ruining the moment, for fear of scaring Tessa off. She’ll leave, any moment now, take her hand from her arm and her cake up the stairs and her body away from her body, to her own bed, to not Mariah’s bed. She’ll leave, and break things, but for now, she looks at her, still and steady and honest and close. For now, she doesn’t hide, so neither does Mariah. ‘I kissed you back, didn’t I?’

 

 iv.

 

 

There are miles between them.

Snow beats - wildly, silently - at the window. Someone somewhere, in the kitchen she thinks, lets a glass fall to the tiles, and the shatter is followed by a yelp, and a laugh, and a _never mind!_ and a _shit happens!_ The muffled tones of endless carols and the steady thrum of chatter (idle gossip, idle flirtation, idle wars) wafts up the stairs, through the corridor, sneaks under closed doors, calls them to a party neither of them want to go to. It fills up their bodies, their jangled nerves seeking refuge, with a feeling somewhere between relief and terror and urgency and missing out; a feeling that overflows, spills over, drowns them both as they slam into each other - chest against chest, knees against knees, head against head -  Mariah rounding the corner from her bedroom, Tessa emerging from the bathroom. There are inches between them. There are miles between them. There is a chasm between their bodies - tired and frustrated and wanting; always _full_ of wanting each other.

‘Sorry!’

Tessa grips her arm for a moment, rights herself, feet tripping over each other. Mariah’s hands fly, thoughtless, limbs of habit, to steady her at her elbow, at her waist - knotted in the fabric there; and for a moment they’re themselves again, friends again, they’re at ease with each other’s arms, legs, breasts, lips again, at home with their very own brand of awkward, stop-start intimacy. For a moment they’re lovers, again, or for the first time, or in San Francisco, if things had gone differently, and in the moments before undressing each other, before pushing her against a wall, before telling her she loves - she loves - she _loves her_ , in the moment after a few too many drinks, when insecurities fall away with clothing and broken hearts are pushed to the side - _deal with that later, come back to bed._

‘Oh, hi - you!’ Tessa says, as she opens her eyes, and there’s a joy in her tone that she makes no effort to hide; a desperate, overflowing happiness even as she presses her fingertips, gingerly, to the part of her forehead that bashed against Mariah’s, holds her palm against it, even as she winces. Mariah has half a mind to lean over, and press her mouth to her furrowed brow, to the red mark forming, that matches hers, that stings a little. She has half a mind to kiss her, but she won’t, because she can’t, because they’re _friends._

(They’re not even friends anymore.)

And then she pulls her hand away from Mariah’s arm like she’s been burned, takes a rather large step back (there are miles and miles between them) and Mariah remembers why she’d made her excuses, raced up the stairs under the pretence of fetching a cardigan, sat breathless on her bed for a good half-an-hour. Mariah remembers Noah’s hand, knotted at the fabric of Tessa’s dark dress, remembers him kissing her where Mariah had kissed her, before he moved towards an enquiring relative. Tessa looks around, then leans in, almost conspiratorial.

‘Sorry, I was hiding.’

‘From me?’

‘What? No,’ Tessa stumbles over her words. She had made a stab at something - at familiarity - falters when Mariah doesn’t pick it up and run with it. She tries again, waves her hand towards the stairs, the festivities downstairs. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for the Newman Christmas.’

Mariah’s spies her spying a look at her, spies the nervous rise and fall of her chest (necklace dipping low between her breasts), her hair rapidly unravelling from an elaborate updo, spies her affected chagrin, her made up annoyance. She knows her too well, can hear her seeking camaraderie in exasperation, her voice with an edge to it that wavers, unsure, a hand extended the in friendship - _let’s hate the world together_.

But Mariah is too stubborn to step across the battlelines, the war she’s made in her head. She’s too bruised, too embarrassed, too angry, too in love with her still; and she’s not sure her heart can bear it.

‘Maybe not.’

‘Maybe not,’ Tessa echoes. It was a barb aimed square at her, aimed to hurt; and she watches her face crumple a little, like paper, feels a small and horrible jolt of victory, of redemption. Maybe Tessa’s not cut out for the Newmans, for the Newman Christmases, and Thanksgivings, Halloweens, get-togethers, weddings, endless _endless_ arguments - for the town, the city, her home, her brother. Maybe she should get out. Maybe she’ll get out.

It’s a barb aimed at Tessa, aimed to sting, but she feels it in every inch of her body; all at once, after brief moments of vindication. It is a hard, cruel, unforgiving ache, and she has to fold her arms across her chest to stop her heart sliding out of the bottom of her ribcage in protest - because she wants her here. She wants her here with her.

She wants her hand at her waist and her mouth at the corner of her mouth, quirked, upturned - a smile for her, for their joke without words, the sort of secret, silent humour only people in love with each other share. She wants her fingers, tangled, untangled, tangled in hers, as they pick their way through the crowded living room, mingle, make nice, shit-talk, as they make conversation about the weather with some distant nameless relative, holding tight as she introduces her to person upon person - (Tessa) (performer) (girlfriend). She wants them to get a little light-headed on expensive champagne, wants to be down there making a mess of the kitchen with her. She wants to be up here, making a mess of her dress, of her hair, of her make-up - wants to fool around with her in the corridor. She wants to tell her she hates Christmas, and she loves her, as the night is winding down, and they stumble into bed, and leave the mess for the morning.

 _Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe not_ , _s_ he had said, to get back at endless maybe-one-days; a careless reply to a clumsy promise, and had cut them both off at the knees. She thinks, maybe, what she had meant to say was _maybe, with me, maybe we’d get through it._

But she can’t bring herself to say anything of the sort, can’t muster the courage for another confession; so she settles for an admission, when Tessa just shuffles her feet, tugs her dress down where it is sliced high, gathers far above her knee. Tessa peeks at Mariah, then stretches out her hand, palm upwards, awkward, an offering of conversation to break the silence.

‘Who were you hiding from?’

‘You.’

Mariah barely gets the word out, can barely look up, is proud all the same of the small, clear syllable which tumbles off her tongue. She uproots her feet from where they have planted, in the middle of the corridor; shifts past Tessa, towards the stairs, misses the look on her face. She misses the way she follows after her until she hears the clack of heels on the wooden steps, hears her desperate, frustrated tone.

‘We have to talk about this eventually, you know.’

‘About what?’

‘You know about what,’ Tessa lets out a frustrated sigh, and Mariah is gripped by the urge to scream. She wants to drag her to the middle of the party, clear a circle in the living room and scream loud enough for everyone to hear, so there’s no doubt. _You didn’t want me! You don’t want me!_

Instead she keeps her head down, takes two steps at a time, leaps to the bottom with Tessa chasing after her all the while. She manages to catch her by the arm just as she’s about to move towards the swarm of people; holds her at the starting line, at the threshold.

‘You know about _what_ ,’ she repeats as Mariah turns to face her, squares her shoulders, straightens her back, takes a step towards her so she can talk close and low and quiet and clear, and they’re almost flush against each other.

‘We talked, Tessa,’ she says. ‘You - ’

‘Kiss!’

Mariah snaps her head around, gaze flitting around the gathering, and their amused faces, and their conspiratorial smiles. She searches for the source of the voice, the joke, the demand; watches as Sharon hushes some young cousin she barely recognises, watches her sympathetic, pained expression grow as she meets Mariah’s eyes, then tilts her head above the two of them.

The mistletoe hangs, tauntingly shy of Tessa’s head - and if she reached up she could yank it down quite easily. Mariah pleads for her to, silently, as the quiet titter turns into a rather rambunctious egging on, the kind that happens when a group of people are stuffed into a house, when a group of people collectively have a little too much to drink, stuff themselves full of a little too much Christmas joy.

‘Oh come on, it’s tradition!’ comes a voice, comes her brother’s voice, comes _Noah’s_ voice - jovial, carefree, mirthful; raises his glass as if cheering them on.

The insanity of the situation sits firm on Mariah’s chest, swirls around Mariah’s head, and she almost wants to laugh - weeks and months, and broken hearts and now she should, can, must kiss Tessa. Kiss Tessa? Kiss her here? Who’d want to do that?

(She would. She’d want to.)

She sucks in a deep breath, doesn’t dare move for fear of feeling something, so it’s left to Tessa to lean down; press her mouth against Mariah’s. It’s quick, chaste, but her lips are how she remembered them (soft, tender) and her hand is on her shoulder, thumb against the bare skin by her collarbone, and Mariah watches as her eyes flutter shut for a second, as she pauses for a moment - a good moment too long - before she pulls away. Nobody would have noticed it, her imperceptible hesitation, her lips pulling, pushing, pulling away; but Mariah does. Mariah does and it sets her spinning, sends her reeling far off course from the orbit of shame, regret, rejection she had resigned herself to.

When she does move, she takes her hand from Mariah’s shoulder, and throws it up in the air, towards the gathered crowd, in a sort of shrug, with a sort of grin, plastered there, the cherry atop a mountain of passive aggression. _Such fun! Go away!_

It’s only when everyone has had their fun, hurrahed and guffawed and applauded and swiftly lost interest that Tessa leans back down, close to a speechless Mariah.

‘What were you gonna say?’

‘You- ’ Mariah clears her throat, bites at her lip, shakes her head clear. She aims for confidence, falters, lands on hysterical, overwrought, fumbling. ‘You didn’t want me.’

She watches the furrow of her lovely brow, the downturn of her lonely mouth, chastened, confused. She watches her reach out towards her, watches her pull away.

‘That’s not true.’  


v.

  


She finds Tessa’s bra on her bedroom floor. She finds a tangle of their clothes in the radius of the laundry basket, odd pairs of their shoes kicked off unceremoniously by her door, finds sheets tangled around bare legs. There is a pile of pillows at the wrong end of her bed, and a dark, messy head of hair atop them, face down, snoring lightly. There is a sleepy arm reaching out to the neighbouring pillow, slender fingers blindly searching out naked skin, and Mariah wants to crawl under the covers, tangle their limbs together, stay there forever.

‘Looking for something?’

Tessa lifts her sleepy heavy neck, dream heavy head for a moment, smile growing wide and relieved as she makes out Mariah’s form - billowing shirt, long legs, unbrushed, untamed mane of hair - before she lets herself fall back on the bed.

‘Note on the pillow,’ comes muffled, as she pats the mattress next to her, as Mariah pads across the carpet.

‘Not really my style.’

‘What is then?’

The mattress dips below her weight as she crawls carefully onto it, two mugs precarious in one hand and the other gripping onto Tessa’s arm to keep her steady.

‘Coffee,’ she says, breathing out a laugh when Tessa shifts, scrambled to sit up, scrambles for a mug, her mug, the mug with her name painted across it in childish, treasured letters, a gift from Faith. She settles herself on the bed, under the sheets again, so her foot brushes Tessa’s leg, and after _weeks_ of not touching, after weeks of trying to hate each other, months of holding back, holding back, _holding back_ , it’s almost more than she can bear. It’s almost more than she can handle, watching the sheet fall from Tessa’s body a little as she cradles the mug, baring the bare and porcelain skin of her side - the fold in her stomach when she leans over, the freckle just shy of her hip that maybe she might have kissed last night.

It’s almost definitely more than she can bear, with any semblance of chill, any pretence of cool, when Tessa leans over, leans over their coffee mugs and the gap between their pillows, the gap between their bodies, and presses her mouth to Mariah’s mouth for a moment. Her lips are stained with coffee, and the early bitterness of the first few sips, and the sweetness of two sugars, and morning ease - the sort of quick and tender carelessness that makes her think they lived a whole life out in the space between last night and now; that makes her think she’d brought her coffee every morning, that she’d kissed her a thousand times.

‘Sorry,’ Tessa mumbles, as she pulls away, shuffles her hand through her fringe.

‘For what?’

‘Kissing you,’ she doesn’t meet Mariah’s gaze, just blows halfheartedly on rapidly cooling coffee, just blushes. The tangle in Mariah’s head - the knot in her stomach - subsides for a moment, and she’s breathing out a laugh before she can stop herself, as if to say _we did a lot more than kissing last night._ ‘I just meant, your face, you’re just - you look - I dunno.’

Mariah knows she’s skirting around _miserable,_ around _terrified,_ she can feel the way her mouth tightens, feels the blood rushing from her cheeks, how sentences fall together and come apart in her head, and she can’t figure out how to say what it is she wants to say.

She wants to tell her how happy she is, but happy isn’t the right word, and neither is content, nor is elated. She wants to tell her how she _felt_ , gripping her hand as they stumbled up the stairs in the dark - the swooping in her stomach as they moved, quiet, together, tethered, towards her room. She wants to tell her how Tessa felt against her, lips on her neck as she closed the door and hands on her waist as she turned her around, and hands in her hair, and hands in the belt loops of her jeans, and on her arse, and beneath the hem of her shirt.

She doesn’t know how to apologise for her trembling hands, as she fumbled with the zip on her pants, with the button at the back of her shirt, with the hooks of her bra; doesn’t know whether she should, because Tessa’s hands trembled too. Should she say sorry, for her feet stumbling over hers as she moved Tessa towards the bed - so they fell together, so they laughed until they were breathless? Should she beg forgiveness, for her inexperience, with women, for her eager, messy kisses that made their teeth clash, their tongues clash, against each other; and her clumsy fingers as they walked a path down Tessa’s body, to the apex of her legs, and her graceless lips that followed her hand, the path of her mouth across each breast and the valley between them, and the small swell of her stomach, and the jut of each hip bone, and the freckle just north east of her right one?  Should she act contrite for the noises she made, as they moved against each other, graceless, naked, bringing themselves to the brink and back with their hands and their mouths and their bodies; and the way she trembled, moaned, sighed, mouth against her hair and leg hooked around her waist when she came?

What she wants to tell her, really, in the end, is what it meant, when she mumbled what she mumbled, half-asleep in the early hours of the morning, as Mariah crept back into the room with a glass of water, their aching bones and unwound limbs in a united state of blissful post-orgasmic exhaustion ( _come back to bed, come back to bed_ ); and the smile that she could feel against her cheek when she did. She wants to take her nightshirt off now, take off all her clothes and crawl beneath the sheets and feel the way she felt last night, do the things they did last night, because then she wouldn’t have to say she’s scared she’ll screw it up, she’s scared they won’t be friends, she’s scared that Tessa might break her heart, again, again, again, again, because she can, because she has it.

‘Tess,’ is all she manages. She can’t bring herself to look upwards, to see her wrinkled nose and coffee mouth and the sleep in her eyes, in the sunlight that pours through her window and colours her bed. Instead she reaches over, stills the nervous drumming of Tessa’s fingers on the rim of her mug, turning her hand over so her palm faces the ceiling, so Mariah can trace the lines that stretch and carve across her skin, and the curve between index finger and thumb, and the pulse point at her wrist. She thinks, briefly, that she might lean down, press her mouth there, where her perfume lingers, where she could feel her heartbeat. She clears her throat, instead, lets go of her hand. ‘I’m gonna shower.’

_You should join me._

_You should join me,_ she should have said. She could have asked, if she was brave, if she was seductive, but the words stick in her throat, tangle in her tongue, spill out only when the hot water beats at her naked back, when the steam fills the bathroom and she’s alone. She finds herself mumbling it ( _you should - would you - how about —_ ) under the steady tattoo of the water against the shower floor; like a practice run, like a rehearsal, like a _prayer_ , like if she says it right, or often enough, she might feel Tessa’s arms slip around her waist, might feel the heave of her breasts against her back and the warmth of her mouth against the crook of her neck when she mumbles _thought I would join you._

But she doesn’t. Because she doesn’t ask.

After, she wipes the fog from the mirror, just enough to see her reflection, and stands, bare and fresh and without her towel, lets her eyes wander. She lets her fingers wander, down the path Tessa might have taken, the path she took last night, and this morning, a ramble across peaks and valleys, freckles, marks.

Her fingers are deft, practiced in the tender exercise of the geography of her own body, and she knows her way around, she really does, but this time - this time feels different. She feels _new._ Unchartered. Like the places Tessa touched, before Tessa touched them, had not been explored, were not yet mapped; and now her whole body has shifted, is shifting, and her bones don’t fit in it anymore, her heart is too big for it. Every inch of her feel different now, and she knows the feeling won’t go away, not for a while, knows it’ll grow like the bruise which blossoms above her collarbone (which she hadn’t seen until now, which had been made last night, in amongst kisses, amidst orgasms), before it fades, loses its violence, its bright, new colour, settles back into the skin.

The mark, which makes her nervous, which makes her exhilarated, is the first thing Tessa notices, when she turns around, when Mariah comes back into the room.  She watches her eyes fall to it as she straightens her back, a closet door open and a dress in her hand - one of Mariah’s. She holds it up.

‘Do you mind?’

‘No,’ Mariah mumbles, shakes her head, offers a smile, offers some privacy, moving to leave.

Tessa is across the carpet in a quick few strides, keeping a gentle grip on her arm as she turns her back around. The dress is abandoned on the floor where Tessa had stood, and she is quite bare, quite close, Mariah keeping her gaze firmly on her face, on her gentle smile, on her furrowed brow.

She sucks in a breath, holds it, as Tessa relinquishes her grip, lets her intrepid fingers skate up her arm, across her collarbone, touch light as she traces the mottled violet just northeast of it, just below her neck.

‘Sorry,’ she whispers.

‘Don’t be,’ Mariah replies, quiet, sure, then adds with a smile. ‘Hilary will have a field day when she sees it.’

Tessa breathes out a laugh then, moves a finger along, across her chest, until it glides along the top of her towel, to the tenuous fold that sits on her cleavage. She keeps her eyes on Mariah’s expression, searches her face, like she’s asking permission; and when Mariah offers the faintest nod, she can feel the fold being untucked, can feel her towel fall from her body and pool at her feet.

They stand for a moment like that. They stand for seconds, but it feels like centuries, naked bodies washed in the morning sunlight that pours in through her window. She resists the urge fold her arms across her chest, fold her hands across the thatch of hair at the top of her thighs, resists the urge to crack a joke, come up with an excuse to leave. She just lets herself be looked at, looks at Tessa in return, at her narrow shoulders and her pale skin, at the sweep of her hips, at her breasts, nipples hard and pink in the cool air, at her soft and curved and bare body, at every inch, which she loves, which loves her.

‘You’re pretty gorgeous, you know.’

She feels Tessa’s grin against her, before she even notices her bending down, feels her hand at her waist. She has to fumble at Tessa’s shoulder, for fear of toppling over, being clumsy, being ill-prepared for her mouth on her skin. The kisses are feather light but sure, certain, against the top of one breast, against the other, against the mark she had made.

She wants her mouth everywhere. She closes her eyes, drags in a breath, her shoulders rising and tensing, as Tessa kisses her way up the column of her neck, along the line of her jaw. She wants her hands miles lower than they are, gripping at her waist. She wants her everywhere, all at once, she thinks, and Tessa knows it, she knows she knows it, as she presses a chaste kiss to her mouth. She can see the smile on her face grow mischievous as she leans back, appraises Mariah, unguarded desire clear across her expression. She loosens her grip, so just her index fingers rest in the dip of her waist on either side of her body, so that they can trace a gentle line across her skin, meet in the middle of her belly, skate their way up to her sternum, to the valley between her breasts; before she lets them fall by her side.

‘You aren’t so bad yourself,’ she mumbles, but the sentence is almost swallowed whole by the loud blare of her phone alarm, and she smacks her forehead, lets a barrage of _oh fuck, fuck, fuck, shit!_ spill from her mouth. ‘I’m late!’

‘I could drop you?’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘It’s on the way,’ is what she says, with a shrug, as she watches her scurry across the room, shimmies into the dress, her dress; but what she wants to say is that she doesn’t mind, doesn’t mind one bit, having her in the passenger seat, on the short commute, with the dribble of music crackling on the radio and her fingers tapping the melody out on Mariah’s stockinged thigh. She won’t complain, watching her nimble fingers trace on eyeliner at the traffic lights, and her leg bounce anxiously until they move again, and her mouth keep up a steady flow of conversation even as she slashes bright red lipstick across it. She wouldn’t speak a word against a kiss goodbye.

They dress quickly, quietly, help each other with bras and buttons and zips. Any lingering embarrassment, any remnants of the anxiety which had risen and peaked and overtaken her, seem insignificant now, and she wants to tell Tessa she loves her for it, for earlier, for her courage. She wants to tell her she thinks she’s brave and kind and _good,_ and she’s sorry she doesn’t tell her more often, sorry she doesn’t hear it every day, from every lucky soul she meets, because she is.

‘Wait’, she says, catching her by the shoulders as she steams towards the door, holds her there for a moment. She knows she’s anxious to go but she doesn’t wriggle, just smiles as Mariah slides her hands around Tessa’s neck, tucks a wayward label beneath the dress, lets her fingers linger there, play with the rebellious strands escaped from her ponytail. ‘I could pick you up too, if you like?’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘You could - ’, Mariah stumbles, loses her nerve, lets her hands slide from her neck, down her shoulders, arms. Tessa catches her hands. ‘You could come home with me? We could, do dinner, and - stuff?’

‘Home?’

She can feel Tessa’s grip loosen in Mariah’s, so she holds her by a couple of fingers. She can feel her knees bump against her own. She watches as Tessa’s brow rises and falls and rises again, watches anxiety, adoration, desire paint her expression, watches her gulp in a breath and draw up her frame and try to contain the joy that swells in her body, watches a smile crawls on her face; and it occurs to her that it might have meant more to her than coming back for the night, the word might mean more to her than that. She wants to tell her she understands, she gets it. She wants to say, come home with me, every morning, every night, forever. She wants to kiss her, so she does.

‘Yeah, home.’


End file.
